Couchbase N1QL result changes shape depending on SELECT syntax

Question

I'm new to Couchbase, and I've run across a behavior that is really bothering me. Let's say I've defined this class in C#:

public class Thing
{
    public string Property1 { get; set; }
    public string Property2 { get; set; }
}

I store it in Couchbase in a bucket called ThingBucket. Now, if I go into the Couchbase Query Workbench and I enter:

SELECT Property1, Property2 FROM ThingBucket

What I get back is a JSON object that will deserialize directly to an array of Thing:

[
    {
        "Property1": "Value",
        "Property2": "Value"
    }
]

This is nice because I don't have to do anything special to get this to deserialize to a Thing. The Couchbase C# driver calls Json.NET to deserialize, and it just works.

However, if I enter:

SELECT * FROM ThingBucket

I do not get an array of Thing. I get something else entirely:

[
    {
      "ThingBucket": {
          "Property1": "Value",
          "Property2": "Value"
      }
    }
]

Now, instead of an array of Thing, I have an array of shapes that don't exist in my C# code at all. It's an array of objects where each object has a property which is a Thing. In order to get this to deserialize to Thing, I have to cover Thing with [JsonProperty] attributes, which seems redundant and kind of ugly:

public class Thing
{
    [JsonProperty("Property1")]
    public string Property1 { get; set; }
    [JsonProperty("Property2")]
    public string Property2 { get; set; }
}

This is what the examples look like in the documentation for CouchbaseNetClient, so it seems this behavior is expected.

Is there an elegant way to make it return the original shape without listing out every property in the SELECT statement? Also, is there some value in this behavior that my newbie eyes are not seeing?

Answer 1

The RAW keyword may be what you are looking for.

SELECT c FROM customer c gets you this:

[
  {
    "c": {
      "Property1": "Value",
      "Property2": "Value"
    }
  }
]

SELECT RAW c FROM customer c gets you this:

[
  {
    "Property1": "Value",
    "Property2": "Value"
  }
]

Answer 2

Because of this behavior, I generally prefer writing N1QL with aliases like this:

SELECT b.* FROM myBucket b;

As your queries become more complex (with JOINs and UNNESTs and so on), you'll eventually want those aliases anyway.